


I Live to Make You Free

by DailyDaves



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DailyDaves/pseuds/DailyDaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've been through this before. They know the script.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Live to Make You Free

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted! Original prompt was: _michael/ray and betrayal for short story sunday? (if you write ragehappy, that is!)_

“I’m sorry I left.”

“It’s not like you don’t do it every other time.”

They’re at it again, like clockwork. It’s the same conversation they’ve had a thousand times before. And if they keep it up, it’s the same conversation they’ll have a thousand times to come. Michael’s apologies don’t mean anything anymore. They haven’t for a long, long time.

“Ray. Please.”

It’s sincere. Ray knows it is. It’s as sincere as every other time he’s said it. He knows the script—Michael will beg. Michael will plead. Michael will scream and cry. Ray has half a mind to type up the script, to print it off and throw it at Michael one day just to show him how they go through the same fucking thing every week. At this point, he could do it verbatim, and he wonders if Michael would even bat an eye if he ever did it.

“I’m tired, okay?” Ray snaps, raising his voice, watching Michael’s eyes grow a little wider. “I’m just tired of this. Go home. Your girlfriend will be happy to see you.”

“Ray, come on,” There it is. That begging. They’re slipping right back into their typical pattern. Ray can’t deviate from it. Michael always puts them right back on track. Same goddamn thing every week. Michael would promise to stay, would make Ray enough promises to hold the world on his shoulders, they’d talk and argue and Ray would give in. They’d have sex and Michael would leave, would disappear and Ray wouldn’t see him until Michael came back around to beg him to take him back.

It’s a vicious cycle, one that Ray continuously falls into, over and over again. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result, then Ray must be fucking nuts. He’s too self-aware, knowing what was going to open, and still falling victim to it. Over and over again. Like clockwork.

And he’s going to fall for it this time, too. Just like all those other times. There’s no rhyme or reason why. He just would. Michael has a warm home to go back to—a normal life with his normal girlfriend. He’d go back to them, just like he always did, because those were the things that made him happy. Not Ray. Never Ray. He was just a quick fuck.

The cycle was Ray’s whole world, but it wasn’t Michael’s. Ray lived off of the cycle. It was the only thing in his life and it was eating him from the inside out, but it was the only thing he had. Everything revolved around Michael. Even his job at RoosterTeeth. The cycle was his life-force and the thing killing him, both existing at the same time.

The cycle was just part of Michael’s life. While Ray didn’t get a choice in the matter, the cycle didn’t hurt Michael. All he had to do was say a few words that he knew would get him into Ray’s beds and then break it off, just like every other time. Ray lived for him and Michael lived for himself.

That was just the way it went. As painful as it was, it was how Ray lived.

 

 ---

 

It was happening again.

Michael’s tongue was in his mouth and Ray’s hands were sliding under the waistband of his jeans. He’d been in this moments a thousand times and Michael was sitting on his bed and Ray was between his legs. Michael had whispered all those promises into his ears and swore that they’d begin again, just like he always did.

It was happening again and Michael was undressed and Ray was in the process of stripping off his clothes.

He glanced at Michael, Michael who was laid out on his bed, legs spread, grinning at Ray through half-lidded eyes. He was focused on Ray, beckoning him over, pliant and ready for him and vulnerable. In not even an hour, he’d be gone, and a week later they were going to have the same conversation again, just like they always did, like they always would.

But right now, Ray just stared at Michael, freezing in his tracks, hands still on his half-undone belt. He didn’t want to live by the cycle anymore. He was sick of it. Tired of it, tired of Michael making him all the promises in the world, only to break them when he went home to his real family. Michael was Ray’s world, but Ray wasn’t even a blip on Michael’s radar. He was just a song in the night, a call when Michael was lonely. Nothing real to him.

Maybe Michael didn’t realize it. Maybe he was torn up about it. Maybe he really did love Ray. But he never had any explanations for leaving, never justified his claims of “Not this time, I promise”, let alone followed through on them. Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing to Ray. But that didn’t matter. He was sick of the fucking cycle. He was sick of being so dependent on Michael. He was sick of wondering if _this time_ would be the time that he stuck around.

He wanted out. He wanted it to stop.

He wanted something he’d never even considered before.

He’d never once thought it was possible to break the cycle, but in that moment, as he stared at Michael, undressed and willing on his bed, he knew he could. His body moved before his hands did, fingers rethreading his belt, stooping to pick up his discarded shirt and pulling it back over his head.

“What are you—?”

Ray allowed himself to look at Michael, just one last time. Confusion was written all over his face, novels of it in his brown eyes. Maybe he really didn’t know that Ray’s life revolved around him. Maybe he had no idea. Maybe he was under the impression that Ray didn’t believe those promises; maybe he thought that Ray’s world consisted of other people. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

He shoved all those maybes aside, pushing them to a dark corner of his mind, and turned and walked out his apartment’s door.


End file.
